


Random Chance

by cynical21



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Complete, Gen, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-03
Updated: 2014-08-03
Packaged: 2018-02-11 13:21:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2069781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cynical21/pseuds/cynical21
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short series of events, based on a What if situation</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Any who venture here should keep in mind that MY SW universe is generally NOT a place to find fluff or good times. There is darkness here, so walk softly and carry a BIG lightsaber.

TITLE: RANDOM CHANCE

AUTHOR: CYNICAL21

Disclaimer: George is the man; it all belongs to him, and he is endlessly lovely to let us play here.

 

Chapter 1  
  
** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** **:  
  
I sat there in the cockpit of my beat-up little freighter - the one that belongs more to the Bankers' Union than to me - and behaved as if it were just another day, just another job, just another run, and one part of my brain, running on automatic pilot (which is pretty funny when you think about it) plotted the course to Bilbringi with practiced ease. Given the current anomalous gravitational fluctuations around the Cullé Cluster and the political unrest in the Scherik Colonies, I figured it would take just over four days to avoid trouble spots and reach the primary docking station at the high altitude port.  
  
I was aware of a tiny itch behind my left ear, a nuisance which generally only occurs when something happens to make me re-examine my current lifestyle, but I ignored it. I had excellent reasons, after all  - more excellent than usual - to keep my helmet firmly in place.  
  
As usual, it took a bit of creativity to convince the nav-computer to accept the series of co-ordinates I fed into it. Some day - probably sooner than later - I'd have to come up with the funds to upgrade the software, but, for the moment, it would have to do. Funds had been in rather shorter supply than usual since I'd lost my partner. It wasn't a large ship, by any means, but running it alone had proven to be a greater challenge than I'd expected.  
  
I paused for a minute, trying _not_ to remember Jébo's characteristic grin, and suppressed a sigh. There was no point in going over it again.  
  
Dead was dead, and not likely to be rejuvenated simply because I wished it. I had given up on wishes a long, long time ago.  
  
Almost eight years ago, as a matter of fact, on a day when everything in my life - every single thing - had just imploded, and ceased to exist.  
  
Or so I had believed.  
  
For almost eight years, I thought I had learned the bitterest lesson a person could learn; I thought I had faced the ultimate tragedy - the ultimate betrayal.  
  
I was wrong.  
  
And now I could only think of one thing for which I was grateful. If I'd remembered her name, I'd have sent a message to that cocky little exotic dancer in that tacky little nightclub on the mining moon of Naboo; the one who had plopped herself down in my lap, snaked her arms around my neck, and then, very abruptly, leaped to her feet, proclaiming to anyone who would listen that I had "spooky eyes - eyes that made a person feel exposed and alone."  
  
The message would simply have said, "Thank you."  
  
The day after that little encounter, I started wearing dark glasses, but soon, that wasn't enough. I found that I didn't want anyone to actually look into my eyes; nor did I particularly want to look into anyone else's.  
  
And that was the beginning of an experiment that developed into something rather extraordinary, and unexpected.  
  
In a matter of days, the dark glasses had become a helmet, and customized adjustments of my flight suits had resulted in a costume that completely obliterated the identity I had once worn. At the same time, I reached back into memory and retrieved a skill long abandoned.  
  
Strangely, it came back easily, as if I'd never locked it away, but it came back different in one way. It came back much stronger than I remembered.  
  
I found that I had not lost the ability to erect mental shielding around my thoughts and my mental aura, and, to my astonishment, I also found that the more I withdrew my own personality from the fabric of reality around me, the more skilled I became in identifying and reading the personalities and mental auras of those who moved through the fringes of my existence.  
  
It would have made a cute parlor game, if I'd had anyone to play it with.  
  
But I didn't. Jébo had been my only companion through all those years, and he'd been many long months dead and gone by the time I rediscovered and activated my little gift.  
  
So I sat there in the cockpit and reflected that it really sucked to discover that not only had I only _thought_ I already understood the fullest meaning of betrayal, but that I didn't even have anybody to tell about it.  
  
Some lessons, I supposed, one had to learn - and relearn - and relearn.  
  
I was reasonably proud that my breathing patterns were still fairly normal, that I had not gasped out my astonishment, or stood gaping and dumbstruck.  
  
I had felt him before I saw him, of course, and then wasted five minutes telling myself I had finally lost my mind. I simply could _not_ be sensing the person my mind insisted on identifying.  
  
I could _not_.  
  
He was dead; I had seen him die. Dead and reduced to ashes, almost eight years ago. It was impossible.  
  
Only - as it turned out - it wasn't, and I sat alone in my crowded, dowdy little cockpit and figured it out.  
  
And realized, almost immediately, that some part of me - some small, insignificant part - had always suspected something.  
  
When I saw him walking up the boarding ramp - just as tall and impressive and confident as ever, a bit grayer, perhaps, but not really looking any older - I felt the blade that had been embedded in my heart for all those years, shift and impale me all over again, and I don't think I even flinched.  
  
His companion, of course, provided the complete explanation. Not details, of course; I'll never know the details. But the small stuff doesn't really matter anyway. Figuring out the big picture was child's play, once the cast was in place.  
  
Item: one supremely gifted Jedi Master who discovers, quite by accident, a boy with such enormous potential in the Force that it is almost a foregone conclusion that he will grow up to become the long-prophesied Chosen One.  
  
Item: one padawan learner, at that time apprenticed to that self-same Jedi Master, competent enough - "capable" enough - but nothing particularly extraordinary, and definitely an obstacle to any arrangement between the Master and the new apprentice he wishes to train.  
  
Item: a carefully orchestrated encounter with a Sith apprentice, an encounter in which the 'Master' - or a reasonable replica thereof - manages to get himself skewered, and during which the 'capable' apprentice, to everyone's amazement, manages to defeat the Sith.  
  
Item: following the duel, the Master's remains are cremated, with great haste; the boy reputed to be the 'Chosen One' is rejected for training by the Jedi Council and sent into exile, to a secret location; and the luckless 'capable' padawan is found to have been tainted by Darkside emotions during his encounter with the Sith, and is summarily dismissed from the Jedi order.  
  
All perfectly logical developments, and designed to arouse no suspicions.  
  
Perfect.  
  
Except for the fact that M'rFei's Law has a habit of cropping up at the most inopportune times.  
  
Who, for example, could possibly have anticipated that Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn and his gifted padawan, Anakin Skywalker, would have need of transport off the backwater dustball planet of J'hud one dark winter day, and the only vessel available would be a drab little rust bucket called the _Elfing_  - an Ishi-built compact freighter with Corellian registry, with ownership attributed to one Ben Kenby?  
  
Who could have postulated such an unexpected development?  
  
It was second-nature for me, by that time in my life, to double-check my shielding, as I sensed the approach of one of my passengers. The presence was very bright, eager, slightly erratic.  
  
Skywalker, then - wrapped in complacency, slightly smug.  
  
"Pilot," he said sharply, as he leaned around the open hatch, "are we going to be taking off any time soon, or do you have something better to do?"  
  
I was careful to stifle any nuance of humor; it wouldn't do to allow him to tumble to the fact that his shielding was as leaky as a sieve, and that manipulating his thoughts would prove to be child's play for anyone with an ounce of Force skill.  
  
"If you'll go back and strap yourself in, young Jedi," I said politely, "we'll be on our way."  
  
"I hope your bunks are comfortable," he grumped. "Not much else to do but sleep, is there?"  
  
I merely nodded. "Not unless you'd care for a game of dimensional sabreth."  
  
"Oh, that sounds exciting!" Poisonous sarcasm, barely civil.  
  
I decided that I'd been right all those years ago. I didn't like him any better now than I had then.  
  
He went back to the common room, and a signal on my instrument panel flashed, indicating that both my passengers were strapped in for departure. Despite a rising queasiness in my stomach and a little voice in my head that kept insisting I should have turned down the job, no matter how much I needed the money, I went through lift-off procedures with exaggerated care.  
  
It wouldn't do to shake up the pride of the Jedi, now would it?  
  
There were plenty of minor tasks to occupy me in the cockpit, and I elected to remain there for the duration of the trip, while monitoring sensors to keep track of where my passengers were, and monitoring my own internal senses to figure out what they were doing and what kind of mood they were in.  
  
The boy was irritated, but struggling to make sure his Master was oblivious to it.  
  
The Master was . . . oblivious to it.  
  
Now _that_ was truly surprising. In the almost thirteen years that I had spent calling him "Master", I couldn't remember a single fidget that I had managed to get away with. So the question was simple: was I that obvious, or was the boy that talented? And if the latter, why could I sense what Qui-Gon could not?  
  
I decided it was time to test the waters and closed my eyes, to send out the barest, tiniest tendril of Force suggestion.  
  
I waited, as I activated the voice pick-up in the cabin.  
  
The wait was brief.  
  
"Master?"  
  
"Umhmmm?" The sound of an exalted Jedi, nose-deep in one of the historical novels he had adored for as long as I could remember.  
  
"Do you ever think . . . about Obi-Wan?"  
  
A brief silence, and a faint thud, like a book being closed. "Why do you ask?"  
  
"Just curious, I guess." Then a faint, nervous chuckle. "I wonder sometimes. That's all."  
  
The silence this time was longer. "Does thinking of Obi-Wan bother you, Padawan?"  
  
"Not really. I mean, the way it was handled was the only thing that could be done. Right? I mean, it wasn't such a terrible sacrifice, was it?"  
  
Qui-Gon's sigh was faint, but unmistakable. "Only for Obi-Wan."  
  
Anakin responded quickly, and there was a faint vein of anger in his tone. "If you had to do it all over again, would you?"  
  
A faint rustling indicated that the Master had risen and was walking toward the galley. For tea, no doubt. Tea had always been Qui-Gon's refuge from uncomfortable questions or issues he preferred to avoid. "Yes, Anakin. I would do it over again, but I have wondered, on occasion, if there might not have been another way. We all assumed that Obi-Wan could not have handled knowing the truth; that he could not have been trusted to guard the secret of my survival and your training. But I have had cause to question that assumption over the years. In all the years of his training, he never gave me any reason to doubt his loyalty."  
  
"But you couldn't be sure, could you? And you had to be sure. You couldn't take the chance that he might ruin everything."  
  
The sigh this time was heavier. "No. No one was willing to take that risk, so, instead, we destroyed a young man who deserved better."  
  
Anakin's answer was almost a shout. "You're sorry! You wish he was still here. You wish . . ."  
  
"Anakin," said the Master softly, "isn't it enough that we sacrificed him for you? Can't you be satisfied with that? Must we also despise him, to make you happy?"  
  
The silence that fell then was awkward, and I realized something that had not been evident before.  
  
The Master was almost as tightly shielded as I was, but his apprentice was not yet sufficiently skilled in penetrating such barriers to pick up on stray thoughts. I, however, had had plenty of practice.  
  
I was grateful for the privacy afforded me in my shabby little cockpit, where I could hole up, using the excuse of a balky hyper-drive motivator that needed close scrutiny. I don't think either of them gave me more than a passing thought.  
  
They were much too busy entertaining their own concerns.  
  
My gifts, such as they were, had always been grounded in the Unifying Force, including some small facility for precognition. Reaching into the apprentice's mental chaos was ridiculously simple; what I found there was simply terrifying.  
  
We had been right all those years ago. The Council, Master Yoda - even lowly little old, 'competent' padawan me - had been right. "Dangerous" didn't even begin to cover it. Anakin, on the surface, was as bright as a new coin, blinding in his strength, stunning in his power, but inside, under the patina of brilliance, was a dark, necrotic core, where a terrible, bottomless hunger dwelt and bided its time.  
  
And in the Master?  
  
I almost couldn't believe it; it was almost beyond my ability to comprehend.  
  
But it was real; I checked - and rechecked - and re-rechecked.  
  
Beneath all the bravado, all the serenity, all the certainty about the will of the Living Force, all the determination to coerce destiny; beneath all that - he knew.  
  
He knew, and he was helpless to stop it.  
  
Anakin Skywalker, with a little help from certain nameless friends, would destroy the Jedi, and the knighthood would dissolve into the darkness and never understand the why and how of it.  
  
It was already too late.  
  
And, as simply and quickly as that, I felt the bitterness within me simply begin to fade.  
  
I had paid for their betrayal with a heart that would never truly heal. I had paid with the loss of any hope I might ever have had, and what little I might have salvaged after that first, desolate betrayal all those years ago, I had lost now, in the realization that the betrayal had truly been complete; that they had taken the loyalty I had given freely and thrown it back in my face, adding a new wrinkle to the ridiculous soap opera of my life.  
  
But there was one thing I had been spared, however inadvertently.  
  
When the destruction was complete, and all was laid waste, I would be without guilt.  
  
It wasn't much, but it would do.  
  
Four days later, my two passengers stood at the lip of the ramp, ready to depart, and turned to bid me farewell.  
  
"Why do you wear that helmet all the time?" asked the padawan, still young enough to be able to get away with a question that might be considered impertinent from someone older.  
  
I looked directly at Qui-Gon Jinn as I replied. "Trust me when I say that you do _not_ want to see my face."  
  
Even Anakin couldn't quite figure out how to respond to that, so he merely nodded, slung his pack over his shoulder, and strode down the ramp, out into the delicate lavender radiance of pre-dawn.  
  
The Master, on the other hand, hesitated and looked at me. Really looked at me, for the first time. I didn't even have to check my shielding to know it was seamless and perfect, but I did have to resist an urge to fidget.  
  
"Have we met, Captain?" he asked, finally.  
  
I gave him an answer that wasn't an answer. "I'm pretty sure I'd remember, Master Jinn."  
  
After a pause, he nodded. "I'm sorry. For a moment, you seemed familiar, somehow. Perhaps, we'll meet again, sometime."  
  
This time, I was the one who paused, debating. "I don't think so, but perhaps you might want to examine the data chip I gave you, the receipt for your fare. It might prove interesting."  
  
"Why should I . . ."  
  
"Your choice," I interrupted. "Now I really must be off. I have a schedule to keep, you know."  
  
Still he hesitated, but finally he nodded and moved down the ramp, and I tried to turn away but found that I couldn't resist watching him go, knowing it would be the last time.  
  
He stepped off onto the fused stone landing surface, and I saw him pull the datachip from his pocket, as I activated the control to retract the ramp and close the hatch.  
  
I was back in the cockpit, initiating the launch sequence - pre-programmed - when I looked up and saw him standing in front of the ship. Not doing anything; just standing there, waiting.  
  
And I knew immediately what he was waiting for.  
  
If I'd thought about it first, I probably wouldn't have done it. I had not lowered my mental shields in months; I wasn't even sure that I remembered how.  
  
But some things, it seems, one never forgets.  
  
The shields came down, and the thought was there, waiting for me.  
  
_I'm sorry, my Obi-Wan. I never knew how much I loved you, until it was too late to say it._  
  
I couldn't give him the response he probably wanted.  
  
I could only nod, and take my little ship up into the darkness.  
  
Life - or something like it - goes on.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

tbc

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: This story came to me after watching King's marvelous, angst-filled saga on television. It prompted me to think about loss, and how we all deal with it and whether or not we ever learn how to bear it, and, most of all, how it comes back to haunt us in the end. At this point, we examine different perspectives

Chapter Two

_"This is a cash-and-carry world, pay as you go. Sometimes you only have to pay a little, but mostly it's a lot. And once in a while it's all you have._

_That's a lesson I thought I learned nine years ago, on Little Tall, during the Storm of the Century . . ._

_. . . but I was wrong. I only started learning during the big blow. I finished just last week."_

_\--- Storm of the Century_ \- Stephen King

* * * * * * *

Qui-Gon's perspective:

We were fortunate on this mission, my padawan and I. The border dispute between the islanders of Bilbringi's southern hemisphere and the residents of the northwestern territories proved to be easily resolved, through a series of cordial negotiations. It is a truism that I have seen proven many times; a planet which enjoys an abundance of natural resources and a gentle climate does not provide fertile ground for seeds of rebellion or malcontent.

I believe the Bilbringians request Jedi participation at their occasional summits simply to claim some sort of validation, to demonstrate that they are as worthy as anyone else of being monitored by the knighthood. It's a 'pecking order' thing.

The term sat oddly in my mind, as I relaxed on the terrace of the suite provided for Anakin and me, a lovely accommodation in which the constant murmur of the ocean was counterpoint to scents of the kratuelle spice that saturated the very soil of this beautiful, unspoiled world. The Bilbringians were artists and artisans, pursuers of beauty and harmony, with little interest in industrial or commercial endeavors. All of which was made possible, of course, by the abundance of the spice, existing only on this tiny little world and more precious than rare gems.

Kratuelle, the primary ingredient in caroba confections and sweets, prized beyond measure by the great chefs of the galaxy, and their wealthy, semi-addicted patrons, who would pay - and pay - and then pay more to assure a plentiful supply.

The Bilbringians allowed off-world brokers to handle the ugly details of sale and packaging and harvesting and finance, and continued to enjoy the bounty of their lovely world, unburdened by the specters of poverty or hunger or disease which traumatized so many other planets.

They were very fortunate, but, unlike many who were similarly blessed, they knew it, and were always careful to express their gratitude to their gods and to avoid any appearance of gloating at the expense of others.

Bilbringi, therefore, was a feast for the senses and a balm for wounded souls.

Wounded souls, like mine.

I sighed when I recognized why the term 'pecking order' had seemed odd and awkward to me.

It was not a term I was accustomed to using; nor one that my apprentice would even understand.

Not my current apprentice, anyway.

It was an Obi-Wan term, a prod to the memory of that acerbic sense of humor that he only displayed when no one else was listening. Ever mindful of the moment, he had been, and aware of the possibility, no matter how remote, of giving offense.

I sat in silence for a time, observing that it had been a peaceful, enjoyable mission, for which I was grateful, for, if it had been otherwise, I wasn't sure I would have been up to answering the challenge.

Distraction, under certain conditions, could be fatal for a Jedi.

I gazed out toward the breakers, frothed with silver in the waning light, smashing themselves on a reef of crystalline boulders that flashed amethyst and tourmaline, in a semi-circle across the entrance of the bay, reflecting the lowering rays of the sun, and I knew that I needed to meditate. I needed to find my center, the self-same center that I had not been able to access fully since our arrival on this lovely world.

I smiled, knowing it wasn't the arrival or the world that had caused my difficulty.

For four days, I had been enclosed in a vessel barely twenty meters in length with an individual who had once been a constant presence in my mind and in my heart, and I had not known.

The Force, which I had spent my life trusting for guidance and intimations of the flow of time and tide, had remained absolutely silent, as if it had surrendered to his will, accepting his right to demand its obedience.

I saw the first stars spark into existence out over the tranquil sea and acknowledged that, if I were brutally honest, I would also grant him that right.

Eight years! How could it possibly have been eight years?

And how could he have known and waited, biding his time, and only opened his mind and his heart when it was too late; when I couldn't even ask that he remove that confounded ugly helmet, and let me look, once more, into those eyes, those incredible eyes which had once reflected everything good and treasured and beloved in my life?

What, I wondered, would they have reflected this time? What did he see when he looked at me, and at my apprentice?

I sent a tendril of Force energy through my bond with Anakin, to determine where he was, and to be certain, I acknowledged wearily, that he was not involved in anything inappropriate.

I closed my eyes then, and laid my head back against the plush padding of the lounge chair, and heard it again. Just as I'd heard it a hundred times - or a thousand times - or ten times a thousand times before.

_"The boy is dangerous. They all sense it; why can't you?"_

It was years after that fateful last day on Theed before I could bring myself to consider that question. When he had asked it, I had responded with outrage; I had actually, for just a heartbeat, felt an urge to strike him, as the terrible black fury swelled within me. How dare he? That had been the only coherent thought I could find to cling to. How dare he question me so?

He had been at least four years in my past when I had finally been able to let the rage and fury go and consider the question as it was intended.

Obi-Wan had never closed himself off from me, during the course of our relationship, except for those frightful times when we were struggling to establish our link to each other. Once those raw, wounded days were behind us, he had ever been open and unshielded with me, offering his trust and his loyalty as easily as another might have proffered an opinion about the price of stem-tea in Rowaaka. And it was no different that day. Even though the hurt within him was like a huge, lurid bruise; even though he was struggling to understand what I had done and to support me, as he always had, even though, in my impulsive challenge to the Council, I had managed to ignore completely what I might have done to him, he still remained unshielded. To see the truth of what he said, I had only to bother to look.

I chose not to do so; I chose to turn him away, and, as he turned to do my bidding, obeying as he always had, I felt the heartbreak within him. He was Obi-Wan Kenobi, the pride of the Jedi, and as strong and pure in the Force as anyone I had ever known; he was also as precious to me as my own life, and I knew that he would survive whatever cruelty fate might devise for him, because he had such strength and such a firm grasp of the Force and his own abilities that no one would ever succeed in taking either away from him.

That was what consoled me; that was what I told myself, as I turned to provide warmth and affection for the boy who would become the reason for my entire existence.

Never once did I actually consider what he had said.

_"The boy is dangerous. They all sense it; why can't you?"_

Years later - too late - I chose to answer the question; I couldn't see it, because I did not wish to see it.

I leaned forward and watched the sun's last pulse of radiance as it settled into the sea, and wondered how grown men can allow themselves to be so foolish.

We were Jedi, a term that meant many things. Or rather, a term that was _supposed_ to mean many things. Among those things was a complete absence of hubris, a dearth of ambition.

That was a basic tenet of the Jedi philosophy, but somehow, the true meaning of it got lost somewhere, in the Order's procession through time.

I didn't sense the danger in Anakin, because I wanted to train the Chosen One; I wanted to be vindicated; I wanted to be proven right.

I stared out into the new nightfall and knew that all I had dreamed, all I had wanted was now only ashes.

And Obi-Wan had sensed it. The glimpse he had allowed me, that cold, barren moment which did nothing more than acknowledge that he had understood my message, had carried one additional glimmer of thought.

I almost smiled in the growing darkness.

After all those years, after all the bitter loneliness, the puckish sense of humor seemed to exist still, in spite of everything.

He had been human enough - and hurt enough - to allow me to hear it.

_I told you so._

A flicker of visceral warmth trailed through me, and I knew at once that Anakin was 'amusing himself' again. He had become quite adept at finding 'amusement', anywhere our missions took us. For a time, I had objected and attempted to convince him to control his raging hormones, but, in the end, I had simply accepted defeat. While attachment and possession were forbidden for members of our order, sexual liaison was not, and there was absolutely no danger that my apprentice would allow himself to become truly enamored of whatever young woman happened to strike his fancy. Anakin held himself above such attachments; his companions were merely conveniences.

To his credit, he never pretended otherwise; never made promises he could not keep or whispered endearments he did not mean.

I did not delve too deeply into his persuasive methods; that was something else that I decided I did not want to know.

He knew the rules that forbade Force compulsion; he maintained that he had never broken them.

Sometimes, when I couldn't avoid it, I remembered the faces of some of the lovely young men and women who had succumbed to his charms; he always had exquisite taste and preferred his partners to be delicate and virginal in appearance, and I tried not to recall the dazed expressions in their eyes as he walked away from them, with nothing more than a wave and a smile.

When the warmth of the afternoon began to fade into the gentle chill of evening, I abandoned the terrace, and debated if I wished to make my way to the communal dining room, but I knew it would be pointless. I had no appetite; it had apparently deserted me as I watched a small, decrepit freighter spiral up into the birth of morning several days before.

Anakin had grown somewhat suspicious, after a time. He did not have the empathic skills to ferret out my deeper thoughts and emotions, but he could sense that something was different. For the first days of our mission, I would turn suddenly to find him studying me, speculation bright in his eyes. Once, when he returned to our quarters quite late, he found me sitting at the com-station, having just completed a conversation with my old friend, Mace Windu, and I realized that he had focused on the datachip I held in my hand - a datachip I had kept in my pocket since our arrival, and fingered almost constantly. Already, in just those few days, it had begun to warp and distort.

Soon, the signature would fade to nothingness.

I went to prepare a cup of tea and returned to my maunderings.

I had finally decided to tell Mace about my encounter, but it was a near thing. Somehow, I wanted to keep it to myself, as if by refusing to speak of it, I could keep it closer, keep _him_ closer.

Naboo was surely a lifetime ago.

They had not allowed me to see him at all, or to witness the battle he fought against the Sith. For a time, they had even refused to tell me the outcome, in the certain knowledge that I would object to their plans to dismiss him from the Order.

They had most certainly been right on that score.

But, in the end, I had accepted it, as the will of the Force, and for the good of the Order; I had accepted it and put it away, willing myself not to think or consider or speculate on what it had done to Obi-Wan.

He would survive; I assured myself of that, and I was right, after a fashion.

He had survived, but he was no longer the Obi-Wan I knew. That child - that beacon of brilliance and purity - was dead. In its place was a young man in the grip of a tremendous cynicism, who had learned that trust was a weakness he could not afford.

He had learned that eight years earlier; he had learned it again just days ago.

I wondered if he had believed me; I rather thought not. If I had been in his shoes, I doubt I would have believed me either.

But the true irony of it all - the ultimate joke played by blind providence, the final proof that the Force possesses a wicked sense of humor - was that it was true. Every word.

I had loved him for all the years we spent together, and I had never once allowed myself to acknowledge it, or to speak it. He was the brightest, the most precious gift that Life ever entrusted to me, and I threw him away.

I wondered how long the brightness lasted; I wondered how long it had been before his belief in the beauty of the Force and the honor of the Jedi simply evaporated into the grip of grim realism.

I wondered and knew I would never know.

We would return to our home base on the following day, the little Temple on the sea world of Merissk where we had spent all these years, waiting to reveal the existence of the Chosen One. The time was still not right, although the Council had finally relaxed its restraints sufficiently to allow us to undertake diplomatic missions in the more remote sections of the galaxy. The time was still not right for the Big Day - Anakin's term for it - and I now questioned if the time would ever come.

Something within me suggested that the projected moment of truth had never been more than a foolish fantasy.

I sipped my tea, and allowed myself to be grateful that we would be returning to our peaceful little haven. I had grown weary of the political intrigues and posturings of the Senate and the Republic, subjects of discussion and debate that one could not avoid when out and about in the great galaxy, and longed only to sleep in my own bed and breathe the clean air of our sanctuary world.

The fact that Mace had informed me of an impending visit by Supreme Chancellor Palpatine and his customary retinue darkened my mood somewhat; I was not fond of the consummate politician, but I tolerated him for my padawan's sake. For some reason, Anakin and the Chancellor had developed a warm regard for each other, and, although I didn't completely understand or approve, I could hardly object.

And, if my apprentice wished to spend a day or two in the Chancellor's company, I would take advantage of the opportunity to try to regain my composure. The journey home would require only two days, and I found that I was eager to get underway.

Bilbringi would always be a world of splendor and great loveliness, but it was, for me, now forever rendered a bittersweet beauty, a reminder of what I had lost.

********** ************ *************

Anakin Skywalker strode through the public rooms of the Temple guest house, pausing only to acknowledge the questioning gaze of the security technician who sat at the reception desk. The guard, who was actually little more than a glorified bellboy, would hardly dare to block his path, as he made his way toward the private area reserved for VIP guests.

Of course, this was Merissk, so VIP was a very questionable term.

On this backwater little world, with its sparse population and its land area which covered only a scant five percent of the globe, there was little in the way of luxury to be found.

The Jedi Temple - unlike its counterpart on Coruscant - was no exception.

It was simply a compound of cottages strewn over a few hundred acres, with a single large complex at its center, where training facilities, administrative offices, conference chambers, and medical suites were located.

The guest house was tucked within a walled area, thick with lush vegetation and fronted by a pristine sweep of pale gold beach.

It was quite lovely, but the beauty was lost on Anakin.

He had seen it every day of his life - almost - and he didn't care if he never saw it again.

He hated Merissk, hated its provincial ways and its slow pace; hated the fact that it was so remote and disconnected from the rest of the galaxy that it didn't even boast a real spaceport, that all transport in and out had to be arranged in advance.

He accessed the Security-seal entrance to the private quarters currently occupied by the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic and didn't bother to conceal a proud smile.

The inspection of the Temple grounds and attendance at the small economic summit being held in one of the conference rooms were only a cover story, and a thin one, at that, but it didn't really matter, of course.

Who, after all, would have the impudence to question Chancellor Palpatine?

The true reason for the visit was to allow the Chancellor time to see Anakin, to keep up with everything that was going on in the young man's life, and to monitor his training.

Anakin had been delighted when he learned, from Palpatine himself, that the man was not completely without Force skills of his own; it was a secret that had brought them closer together for its sharing.

The young apprentice smiled, remembering their many intimate conversations, remembering promises made to him, remembering the future that awaited him.

And remembering too, the pledges he had made in return, harmless pledges, meant only to assuage the Chancellor's great hunger for knowledge and his need to know everything he could about the Jedi, so that he could co-ordinate their efforts with the needs of the Republic, and his own lofty goals.

The Chancellor shared many of Anakin's beliefs and concerns and had pledged himself to helping the young Jedi eradicate the evils that he found so intolerable. And all the man asked in return was to be informed, to be kept in the loop about Jedi policies and general decisions.

And one other thing - one detail that Anakin had never quite understood - but he had not bothered to question the somewhat odd request as he had never expected to be able to provide an answer.

Until today.

He grinned as he spotted the august figure of Chancellor Palpatine seated on a low bench beside the small reflecting pool that was the focal point of the small garden, just beyond a broad expanse of glass doors.

From his pocket, he extracted a worn, slightly limp datachip, somewhat the worse for wear from being handled so much, but legible still.

He paused briefly, remembering the sense of outrage - of betrayal - he had experienced when he had taken the chip from the low table beside Qui-Gon's bed. He had noticed much more than his Master had realized during their stay on Bilbringi; he had noticed the tiny disk that was constantly in Qui-Gon's hand, and he had noticed the bleakness in the elder Jedi's eyes.

He had known immediately that he must learn what it was that had disturbed Qui-Gon so deeply, and he had bided his time.

His chance had come just the day before. Qui-Gon had gone to bathe in the communal mineral spa and left the tiny chip in his quarters for safekeeping.

On his return, Anakin had expected to be questioned about its whereabouts; had even hoped, in some way, to be questioned, so that he could vent his anger, but the Master had said nothing. Instead, he had closed himself up in his bedroom, and, once or twice, the apprentice had almost believed he could hear the sound of soft weeping, but that he would not accept.

It had been eight years, and he felt betrayed to learn that it had not been enough, to learn that it would never be enough.

Kenobi was gone, was nothing, was history; yet, he had managed, through nothing more than a random encounter, to take away what Anakin had spent years building.

He knew the truth now, knew that his gifts and his skills and his genius would never be enough to win Qui-Gon's heart away from that . . . that nothing.

He looked up then, realizing that his rage had swelled within him once more, and that the Chancellor had sensed it, and turned to greet him, eyes filled with sympathetic understanding.

He strode forward, eager for the warmth and acceptance awaiting him and held out the chip.

It was the answer to the question posed to him so long ago.

The fate of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

********** ************* ***************

Qui-Gon's perspective:

I was not amused, and that was an understatement.

Yet, when the eldest and greatest of the Jedi commands one's presence, and he is, himself, accompanied by one of the most powerful Council members, one can hardly refuse to attend.

But I resented the arbitrary summons, and the fact that I had been instructed - no, not instructed - commanded to wait at dawn at the tiny landing field behind the Temple complex, and to speak of the appointment to no one. Not even my padawan, who would shortly be prowling through our cottage, undoubtedly in a foul humor, wondering where I had gone.

I wrapped my cloak close around me, against the chill of pre-sunrise, and took a moment to enjoy the sound of the surf and the song of the nightbirds who were so plentiful on our little island.

Despite resenting the peremptory summons, I was beginning to enjoy the ambience of the morning when a brilliant flash of crimson announced the arrival of one of the newer models of Jedi transports. A small courier ship, large enough to accommodate four comfortably, or six, if they were inclined to be friendly.

It settled on the plascrete with only a whisper of sound, and the boarding ramp extended toward me. The engine was still issuing its soft, sibilant whine as I marched up the ramp, ready and eager to voice my displeasure, but I halted abruptly as I came face to face with Master Yoda, and noted, with a sense of dread, how fragile and delicate he seemed.

"Master?" I said finally. "What's wrong?"

His ears were almost flat against his shoulders, never a good sign. "Accompany us, you will, Master Qui-Gon. Our presence is required."

"But . . . what is it? What's . . ."

His sigh was heavy and deep. "Tell you, I cannot. See for yourself, you will."

With that, he turned and moved into a small private cabin and started to close the door. But he stopped, and looked up at me, and I trembled to see the anguish in his eyes. "Too long, I have lived," he whispered. "Too much, have I seen. Too great, the price."

He closed the door then, and I turned and sprinted for the cockpit, where Mace was feeding co-ordinates into the navigation console.

"What is this?" I demanded and felt my heart thud in my chest, when he refused to meet my eyes.

He simply shook his head. "It won't take long," he said, serving up a non-answer. "Two hours or so, and you'll have your answer. And so will we. So far, we only have speculation, and I won't indulge in that."

"But . . ."

"No, Qui-Gon," he said in a small desolate voice. "We won't speak of this, until we know the truth."

It was obvious that he would not be swayed, so I did the only thing I could do. I sat in the co-pilot's seat and waited and tried to ignore the growing weight of dread that sat on my chest.

He was right; it was just slightly more than two hours.

And when I saw it, I knew.

I knew.

The tiny ship was adrift - charred, gutted, and open to space, twisted around its longitudinal axis, with hull breaches gaping in the darkness.

But the name was still visible beneath the cockpit port viewscreen.

"Is it?" asked Mace, without inflection.

I could only nod, as I noted that Master Yoda had come to join us.

I rose abruptly, and raced toward the airlock.

Everything within me told me that there was no point, but I couldn't just sit there and look at it. I had to see.

"Qui-Gon," said Master Yoda, "there's no point. A team has already inspected the wreckage."

I turned to stare out into the twisted reality of nightmare.

The _Elfing_ spun slowly, enveloped in a cloud of ice crystals, probably formed when its air supply had boiled away.

"Was there . . ."

"No," replied Mace. "It was empty."

I turned again, reaching for an environmental suit.

"No need, is there, for you to do this," said Master Yoda, and I heard the weariness in his voice.

"Yes, there is," I answered, beginning to work my way into the suit. "I _need_ to do this; I need to see for myself."

Neither one of them understood why I felt as I did; I'm not sure I even understood it myself, but I knew I had to go.

I had never cared much for the grim silence of space, but somehow, this time, it didn't bother me. This time, it seemed appropriate.

Gaining entry to the little ship was simply a matter of choosing which opening would give me access to what I sought, and I knew what I wanted. The salvage crew would almost certainly have checked computer files and recorders, probably to no avail. The ship had been stripped, methodically and thoroughly.

This was no random slice and run attack by pirates eager for any prey that happened along; this was deliberate and vicious.

In the end, I found what I sought easily. I fought down the gorge that rose within me, blackness closing around my vision, and had turned to depart when something occurred to me.

I didn't understand why I was compelled to enter the tiny cabin tucked in behind the cockpit; there was little there to see. Any personal effects had either been taken by the attackers or had drifted out into the vacuum of space.

But something called me; something held me and refused to be denied.

Something led me to the exact spot.

A tiny drawer, jammed shut under the edge of a small, badly scarred desk. I prodded at it with gloved fingers, but it was stubborn, refusing to open. I tried again - and again - without success.

Finally, I simply ignited my lightsaber, and sliced into the tiny aperture.

And the only item inside floated up into my grasp.

Small, polished, reflecting the meager light from my helmet lamp, black as ebony.

His river stone, given on the occasion of his thirteenth birthday.

He should have thrown it away, all those years ago, for it could only have served to remind him of me. But he had not.

He had kept it close, and I felt a cold hand close around my heart.

He would not have left without it.

I tucked it into a pocket, and found my way back to the jagged opening through which I'd entered. As I propelled myself back to the Jedi courier, I found myself consumed with bitterness and an emptiness such as I had never known.

My friends - companions of old - were waiting, and pulled me into the warmth of the ship with gentle hands, but I knew then, as I know now, that I would never truly be warm again.

Wordlessly, Mace pried the crumpled piece of flimplast from my fingers, and the two of them read the words printed across the page, eyes filled with horror.

WANTED: ALIVE IF POSSIBLE - DEAD IF NECESSARY.

BEN KENBY

AKA: BEN KENOBI

POSSIBLY AKA: OBI-WAN KENOBI

REPUTED TO BE PILOT/OPERATOR OF INDEPENDENT FREIGHTER, _ELFING_.

CORRELLIAN REGISTRY # JRY0996-33

REWARD: 500,000 DAKTARIS

NO QUESTIONS ASKED.

The poster was torn and stained, and the middle was obscured by a bloody handprint.

They would want to test the DNA, I was sure, but it was unnecessary. Alive, he had managed to shield himself from me, but there was no way I could fail to detect his Force signature, in that bloody handprint, and in the crimson globules and droplets that floated throughout the wreckage, and splattered almost every surface inside.

"Qui-Gon," said Mace, obviously struggling for words.

I looked up at him and saw that we had arrived together at the same precipice.

"What have we done?" I asked finally. "And how do we live with it?"

There was no answer; there never would be.

********* **************** *************

Naboo was still a planet of great beauty. It would take more than wars and occupations by droid armies to destroy it, but it was still only thinly populated, with great sweeps of forest yet to be explored, and mountain ranges of spectacular beauty, protected from the depredations of civilization by the remoteness of their location.

In one of those mountain peaks - thousands of kilometers from any habitation - a vast complex had been built, concealed beneath the mass of the mountain itself, a series of chambers that contained incredible technology, and enough resources to power a small city for all eternity.

It was home to an elite group, who lacked for nothing, who could direct the comings and goings and functions of the entire galaxy and most of the people in it from this remote, heavily shielded site.

It was the secure command center of Darth Sidious, the one place in the galaxy in which he was free to set aside his public persona, and expose his true identity.

It lacked for nothing.

The Sith Lord stood before an expanse of bright crystal and allowed himself a small smile.

He should correct that phrase. It lacked for nothing, now.

All those years, he thought, bracing his fingers against the viewing glass. All those years, and he had almost given up. Almost accepted the inevitability of his failure.

Fate, it seemed, was not above playing a few tricks of its own.

Beyond the window lay a small, comfortable room, crowded now because of a large array of medical equipment, but soon, the equipment would no longer be needed, and he would finally - after what seemed an eternity - have his prize.

Eight years, and he still looked just as he had the last time; the features still noble and youthful, a bit paler perhaps, due to the facial hair that had only just been shaved off; the body still strong and slender and beautifully muscled; the hair still the color of polished copper; the face still lovely in its symmetry.

Sidious sighed. Obi-Wan Kenobi; he had been near death when they brought him in, his body almost drained of blood, and the fools who had risked his prize so recklessly had been surprised by the nature of their 'reward'.

But he was young and strong, and he would mend.

Obi-Wan Kenobi, finally in the hands of the Dark Lord, to whom he would pledge his allegiance, or he would die.

There would be no other alternative.

*********** ************** *************

tbc


	3. Harmony Misunderstood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Author's note: Consider yourself warned. Though stringently within the PG 13 rating - this is exceedingly dark - and not for the faint of heart.

 

Chapter 3

_All nature is but art, unknown to thee;_

_All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;_

_All discord, harmony not understood;_

_All partial evil, universal good;_

_And spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,_

_One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right._

_\--- Essay on Man_ \- Alexander Pope

There was only the blinding, bright, painful, chilling whiteness, as opposed to the absolute, relentless, smothering blanket of starless night.

There was nothing else; _he_ was nothing else, existing only in the one or the other, at the whim of the power - whatever it might be - that controlled this barren place.

Awareness had crept up on him, like a beast stalking helpless prey, and sprung, clawed and pungent and shrieking, at the last moment, causing him to leap to his feet within the core of that brilliance, his mind scrabbling for purchase on a slick, oily reality that would not be grasped.

Disorientation had swelled within him, until it consumed him and exploded through his consciousness to join and intensify the piercing brightness, and he had been forced to swallow the nausea that gripped him with clammy tendrils of foreboding.

  _Where was he? What was this place?_

It was the first question - the instinctive question - but, as it happened, it would not be the most important of those that would soon occur to him.

He spun wildly, shading his eyes against the white glare, only to comprehend that his efforts were futile; there was nothing to see.

He was at the center of a big, white, featureless box - walls, floors, ceilings all composed of some kind of ceramic substance, stark white, with a faint gloss, creating subtle reflections of the shadowless illumination which bathed every inch of the cube with a pallid glow.

The light itself seemed strange, hued slightly toward blueness, but with warm undertones, so that his hands, when he looked at them, appeared bloodless and spectral, but backlit as if touched by some inner fire.

He looked around again and blinked to focus, but it was difficult. The intensity of the light was just below the threshold of pain - just within the limits of tolerance - and he was unable to control a shiver that traced up his spine.

Instinctively, he recoiled and felt the back of his knees impact against the only object, other than himself, within the box; a padded platform, as white as the environment around it - a bed; _the_ bed from which he had risen just moments before. The impression made by his body was still discernible, though fading rapidly, and, drawn by some irresistible impulse, he reached out to touch the surface. It was neither cool nor warm, soft nor hard. It just _was_ , in exactly the same way that everything around him just _was_.

He settled himself on the platform, noting that his attire, what little there was of it, was in perfect harmony with his surroundings. He wore only leggings - white, featureless, sufficient to cover the essentials, but no more - cropped off above the knee, and roomy enough to be unbinding, though snugger than he would have preferred, but such details hardly mattered now.

There were more weighty matters to consider.

 Such as  the _wrongness_ of this place; everything about it - the feel, the smell, the taste, the very texture of the air he breathed felt _wrong_. Felt horribly unnatural, as if what he felt and smelled and tasted and breathed wasn't air at all, but some lifeless, sterile, ancient remnant of atmosphere from a dead world. A bitterness, like the taste of ashes, formed at the back of his throat, and he had to resist an urge to gag at the intrusion.

 _Sensory deprivation,_ he thought, but no, that wasn't quite right either. His senses were working perfectly, as far as he could tell. But everything around him was muted, as if he had been withdrawn from reality and partially submerged in a transitional dimension, existing between two worlds but touching neither.

He wrapped his arms around his knees and lowered his head, blocking the light as best he could, a light that had no visible source - another of the oddities of this place.

But, at least, there was no overt threat, not that he could determine, and, although he noted a certain stiffness in his body, as if he had just recovered from a long illness or a serious injury, he felt well enough; he was sure he had felt worse before; he was sure . . .

His breath left him in a whoosh, followed by a beat of silence that was broken by a hoarse, desperate inhalation as he fought to fill his lungs.

In truth, he wasn't sure he had felt worse; he wasn't sure at all.

He had no memory of anything beyond this place.

No memory - no name - no identity. Nothing.

And, with a suddenness that left him reeling, his disorientation intensified, lodging in his throat, sending him curling into himself, curling around an emotional, physical center that had ceased to have any meaning, curling like a child, with his arms clasped tight over his head.

That was the beginning; it would go on - and on - and on - until he began to believe there would be no end, and the cold, emptiness that formed within him, at the core of his being, during those first moments of epiphany, would grow and swell and extend frigid tentacles throughout his mind and his body. He began to believe he would never be warm again.

On that first day, after a period of cowering within his own mind, he had realized that he was waiting for something - waiting for _anything_ \- and that he was, in effect, accepting that his fate - his present, his future, even his past, as it would have to be revealed to him - everything was held within unknown hands; hands which might prove to be gentle and benevolent, or might not; he found then that he didn't much like the idea of being so dependent on the whims of a faceless, anonymous stranger. Therefore, he would not sit and wait for deliverance; he would act, even if his actions were severely restricted by his circumstances.

A more thorough examination of his cage (for so he termed it in his mind) revealed a tiny 'fresher tucked into a corner, but that was the only relief from the angular starkness, and the facilities were minimal, including only a tiny sink, with a tap that provided a mere trickle of cold water, a receptacle for waste, and a shallow arch with a low pressure shower; basic necessities, but nothing more. No soap, no towel, no comb, no razor, no toothbrush - fundamental needs met, creature comforts ignored.

Minimal, but he supposed he should be grateful. He wouldn't, at least, die of thirst, and he wondered briefly why such dark thoughts should have occurred to him. To this point, nothing had happened that could be construed as an overt threat, but he trusted his instincts, although he had no idea why he should. For all he knew, he might have the worst instincts in the history of sentient life.

Despite the almost liquid light that enclosed him, there was darkness in this place, darkness that watched - and waited - and hungered.

He sat on his bed for a while, deliberately putting such brooding thoughts away; he dozed for a while; then he decided that sitting around - looking at nothing, remembering nothing, thinking of nothing - would be a fast track to insanity, so he would need to focus on something else.

Gingerly, stretching to test muscles and sinews and tendons, he settled, with a fluid grace, into a position that felt comfortable, a position that his body seemed to know, even if his mind didn't, and eased into a physical regimen that felt as comfortable and familiar as an old, well-loved garment. Though he started easily, even tentatively, he soon fell into a natural rhythm, and the pace of his routine increased - and increased again.

Soon he was flying, and, if asked, would have had no idea how he knew how to do that. As he soared out of a running, forward flip with a twist, body completely at ease in a graceful arch, he felt a surge of pure joy and accepted it as the gift it was, without attachments, without symbolism.

He continued until he felt exhaustion approaching, then slowed into languid stretches, to relax and unwind.

Finally, when his breathing was settled completely, he showered, drank some water from the trickle in the sink, and lay down on the cushioned platform.

The moment he stretched out, the light was gone, and he was plunged into a total, unrelieved blackness.

He wondered if he should be alarmed; he wondered if he had been afraid of the dark, in whatever life he had left behind him; he wondered . . .

He was asleep before he could finish the thought.

When he wakened in the morning - if morning it really was - the radiant light flared to greet him, and a tray filled with fruit and coarse-textured bread was set on the floor beside his bed, along with a pitcher of a lightly spiced ale.

And thus was established a pattern, which he grew to resent rather quickly, but was helpless to alter. After a few days, he attempted to stay awake, to be able to confront the person who crept into his cage during the darkness to drop off a new tray of rations, and retrieve what remained of the old, but he realized quickly that such an attempt was futile, and that whoever observed him - and he knew, without knowing how he knew, that he was, indeed, being observed - had the means to put him to sleep without a single indication of what lay ahead. Gas, he assumed, dispersed through the air he breathed, through some hidden vent.

He lay in his bed, and tried to hear the telltale susurration that would tell him where the air port might be, but there was only silence. And the next day, in the brightness, which he was beginning to imbue with a presence that was almost sentient - a malevolent presence that delighted in keeping him exposed and off-balance and incapable of preserving any scrap of privacy - he conducted a meticulous search, certain all along that he was wasting his time, but realizing that he had nothing better to do.

And that was quickly becoming the root of the problem; he had nothing better to do, and he could only exercise, only pace, only sit and think and stare into nothingness, for so long, particularly when he had access to no memories, no images from a past that was only a big, gray void, nothing to color a world gone stark and echoing with emptiness.

He quickly lost track of the days, as there was nothing to mark time's passage, and, slowly, but inexorably, something within him began to change, something that he gripped tightly with bone-white fingers and tried to suppress, something that he was determined to conceal within the garish, white light.

He knelt on his little platform, wrapped in brilliance, incandescent in its midst, and tried to reach out, tried to understand who it was who watched him and why they watched him, and what they wanted from him, and slowly, very, very slowly, he began to need, though he could not have defined exactly what it was that he needed, until the need became almost obsessive, and the explanation came to him in a flash of revelation; he needed, he _hungered_ for a sound - any sound - that he did not create. It needn't even be a word or a voice. Just a sound, to prove that his existence was not merely an exercise in solipsism, to prove that he _lived_ somewhere beyond the limits of his own mind.

Somewhere within the bright, glaring hours or the pitchblend silence of darkness, despair found fertile ground within his heart and began to grow.

And something watched and waited for its time to come.

************ **************** ***************

He paced the observation chamber - once, twice, a dozen times, a hundred times, a thousand times - and clung to his patience with desperate fingers. He must wait; he _must_ wait and have faith. The young man was infused with the power of the Force, even when he couldn't even remember what the Force was, even when the walls that formed the cube that contained him were triple-deep in Force shielding, even when the drug that permeated the food he ate and the liquids he drank prevented him from hearing the voices that sang to him and tried to remind him of the adoration in which he was held; even then, he was cherished within its caress, and it managed to penetrate the stillness around him just enough to give him some measure of strength when he should have had none.

But hope - to survive - must be nurtured and cultivated, and the hours piled one atop the other, and the silence thickened within the young man's heart.

And Sidious waited and watched and believed.

For twenty-six days, he waited and refused to doubt.

The ex-Jedi _would_ break. He would break, or he would die without ever learning the reason for his imprisonment. The Sith would not risk any possibility of the young man regaining his freedom. The Jedi had failed to see the worth of what they held in their grasp; he would not make the same mistake.

Twenty-six days, and he could see that young Kenobi had begun to lose hope, had begun to contemplate the desirability of death.

It would happen soon, or it would never happen at all.

And, then, on the twenty-seventh night, out of the stillness, out of the frigid cold, out of despair, came a single sound.

Sidious felt fierce exultation swell within him, as he tasted the sweetness of victory.

In the cloying thickness of night, the young man was weeping.

The Sith allowed himself a moment of pure delight, as he extended his senses to taste the flavor of his captive's desolation. One taste; that was all he dared allow himself, lest the incredible sweetness become an addiction he could not resist.

The time was at hand; now the second phase could begin. The Sith could barely restrain his glee, as he congratulated himself on achieving his primary goal; in order to rewrite the script that determined a person's path through life, one first had to wipe the original slate clean.

Young Kenobi had now learned despair and hopelessness; soon he would learn something else, something he had left behind him, long, long ago.

Soon, he would learn . . . he would _re_ -learn love.

For the Sith lord had also learned much, in his study of those who would stand against him; he had learned that a man of such honor, such strength, such noble courage would never be broken or defeated by pain or might or coercion.

He would not crush Obi-Wan Kenobi beneath the wheels of power; such a thing was beyond the range of possibility. The young man would willingly die first, even if he never regained a single scrap of memory; his identity - within the framework provided by the Force - apparently was not dependent on recall. He was who he was, and there would be no changing that.

No. One did not break such a man by wielding the weapons of hatred and rage; instead, one allowed such a man to break himself, on a rack of guilt, forged from iron bands of trust betrayed.

It had only been necessary to wait for the first breach in the armor surrounding that young heart.

The dark Lord touched a com-panel on his control console, and issued his command.

"Bring the child."

 

************* ****************** ****************

 

He was tired of being cold; it was the first thought that struck him, just before the moment of revelation.

There was . . . was there . . . could there be . . . a sound - outside of himself; outside of his own thoughts.

A real sound, a real, beautiful sound.

The sound of laughter - slightly shrill, sweet, pure, incredibly lyrical.

The young man was on his feet, struggling to rid himself of dream remnants, as his mind registered the vital signs of reality, the chill of the surface beneath his feet, the hardness of the light, the softness of his hair against his shoulders, the slightly stale taste of air recirculated too frequently.

All immediately recognizable and totally meaningless.

She sat - legs splayed, feet bare and toes twitching in time to some internal cadence - near the 'fresher door, huge, almost black eyes fixed on a tiny creature that periodically leapt into the air, only to land in almost exactly the same location from which it had started - a delicate little insect, green and violet-splotched, with diaphanous, stubby wings, and more legs - segmented and incredibly angular - than one could easily count. The insect gathered itself again, as the young man approached, holding his breath, afraid to learn if what he saw was real, or if his mind had finally snapped and gifted him with that which he most desired: the physical presence of another being.

He stopped, hands clenched against his sides, and the little girl - surely no more than two cycles old - looked up and laughed and said, "Bug!"

To his amazement, he felt tears rise in his eyes and overflow, running swiftly down his cheeks, as he knelt beside the child and reached out with trembling fingers to stroke through a riot of dark curls, incredibly soft and gleaming like silk. "Bug," he agreed, and hastily suppressed a sob. The last thing he wanted to do was scare her with his hysterics.

Her smile was breathtaking; he realized abruptly that he had no basis for comparison, as his memories remained stubbornly silent, but he could not imagine that he had ever seen a more beautiful child.

She glanced once more toward the 'bug' that she had previously found so fascinating, and promptly abandoned it by choosing to get to her feet - a task that was clearly easier said (or thought) than done. It took a couple of attempts, and a certain amount of determination to overcome her unsteadiness, but she finally accomplished her goal by placing both hands flat on the floor, lifting her plump little bottom high in the air, and pushing herself erect with a grin of pure triumph.

She then toddled across the space that separated her from her new acquaintance, paused only long enough to look up into the expression of wonder on his face, and then wrapped lovely, dimpled arms around his throat, climbed up on his lap, touched her forehead to his chin, and spoke a single word. "Poppie."

His laugh was broken, with ragged breath. "No, Little One. I'm not your Poppie, but I am very glad to see you."

She regarded him solemnly, giving him a chance to note the exquisite, almost poreless quality of her skin, the intensity of eyes so dark that it was impossible to determine where iris ended and pupil began, beneath delicate winged brows, and fringed by spiky lashes, thick and lush and midnight black; bee-stung lips that formed a perfect little bow, all set amid a heart-shaped face with rose-dewed cheeks that dimpled delightfully when she smiled, to match the tiny crease in a very determined little chin.

"Poppie," she repeated, bracing her hands on his cheeks, and favoring him with a coy glance from beneath lowered lashes.

Then she laughed, and he laughed with her, unable to resist.

This, he knew, was not a good idea; somewhere, something or someone or some group of someones watched - and waited - and sought an advantage. He would never be sure of how he knew that, but he did know it. The certainty clung to him, lingering in the very air he breathed, and in the heaviness of the silence that had surrounded him for so long. He had writhed constantly for most of the duration of his imprisonment under the sensation of being watched, and by virtue of his reaction to this child, he had just granted an advantage to anyone waiting to use it.

Still, he didn't even try to suppress his delight when she turned and settled into his lap, holding his arms tight around her sturdy little body, nestling her head back against his chest. "Tah-té," she said softly.

"Tah-té?" he echoed.

Carefully, deliberately, she took his hand and laid it against her cheek. "Tah-té."

He would come to wonder, as time unwound from its endless spool, if he had been fond of children in his former life; he was beginning to believe that his questions about what he might once have been would remain just that - questions, without answers.

But it hardly mattered here. Some small scrap of his mind acknowledged that when a single being encompassed all of existence, it was impossible not to devote one's entire heart to that being - especially when said being was as enchanting, as incredibly sweet, as achingly lovely as Tah-té. He acknowledged that there was no way of knowing if the syllables she had murmured to him actually constituted her name, but quickly realized that it mattered little anyway. When he called her by that name, she answered, in her own barely-past babyhood manner.

Her vocabulary was limited, and he knew that he probably misunderstood much of what she tried to tell him, but, fortunately, she didn't seem to mind too much, displaying a marvelous adaptability and a disposition more inclined to laughter and soft affection than brooding.

She demanded little, less than he would have given her, for he quickly came to know that, if he'd had access to the greatest treasures of the galaxy, he would have laid it all at her feet, had she desired it.

But mostly, she didn't; she asked only that he laugh with her, and respond gently to her nonsense ramblings; that he pick her up when her center of gravity betrayed her and deposited her on her well-cushioned little rump; that he hold her when she grew weary and allow her to cuddle against him; that he accept and return enthusiastic, usually very moist kisses and hugs; that he feed her from the tray that still appeared every day, but now included a wider variety of victuals, suitable for a small child's digestion; and that he sing to her when drowsiness enveloped her.

He remembered no lyrics, no lullabies, no songs at all, suitable for a baby or not, but he learned to improvise, making up silly little limericks and scraps of verse and realized quickly that it mattered not in the least _what_ he sang to her; it was the sound of his voice she craved.

He had no memory of love, but he somehow knew it when it happened.

Tah-té, without conscious effort, without his own consent, quickly became the center of his world, filled his heart and his life and almost - _almost_ \- succeeded in making him forget the circumstances of their existence.

Except for one thing.

Every day, when his internal time sense insisted that the day was done, Tah'té would nestle against him, her face pressed against the side of his throat, and they would fall asleep with a swiftness that he knew was simply too immediate to be entirely natural.

And when he wakened, she would be gone.

During those first days, panic seized him; he had been alone too long. He could not go back to that sterile emptiness. He had not realized what loneliness was, until she had come to him to defeat it.

So he would lie there, curling up in a fetal ball and feeling the great emptiness, and ask himself how he would survive it, or if he even wished to survive it.

Eventually, after an hour or two, or so he thought for he had no means of knowing for sure, she would come racing out of the 'fresher, her laughter bright and fresh as a new morning, and leap into his arms, and squeal his name. "Poppie."

He no longer tried to correct her.

Days became weeks; time lost all meaning, and the love between the two grew. In the beginning, he had tried to question her about what happened when she was taken away from him, but she either did not understand his meaning, or - more likely - something blocked her access to the answers he sought, just as something still blocked his own memories.

Eventually, he did the only thing he could do; he began to accept the inevitability of each day flowing into the next. Within himself, confined in his own thoughts, he would have succumbed to the enticing lure of despair, but Tah'té kept him sane, kept him anchored. Gave him purpose. Gave him hope.

He realized, after a time, that he could not have loved her more had she been his own flesh and blood.

And, in the endless night surrounding the bright incandescence focused on two souls, something smiled and savored the taste of success.

And the dreams began.

 

************* ************** ****************

_It was just as painfully bright as it always was, just as livid and piercing, but there was a difference; a sensation of strobing glare, barely noticeable against the actinic brilliance, but definitely real._

_And there was something more; there was a sound to it - shrill, rising and falling, creating a shiver in the spine and a recoil in the mind - like claws scrabbling on slate._

_He turned, panic-stricken, trying to find Tah-té, desperate to keep her safe, to tuck her away from any threat, any harm._

_But he couldn't find her._

_Limbs pumping, he tried to sprint toward the sound, but the quality of the light thickened somehow, and wrapped him in bands of cohesive liquid, refusing to release him._

_The sound swelled, and he was suddenly drenched in cold sweat as the synapses in his brain suddenly made the necessary connections and allowed him to identify the ear-splitting shrillness._

_Someone was screaming. Ahead of him, in a mist that couldn't possible exist in this sterile, empty, antiseptic place, a shadow twisted and leapt and cried out, begging for release, begging for solace, but without actual words._

He wakened with lungs fighting for breath, mind gripped with tendrils of ice, with the bitter taste of fear lodged deep in his throat.

And found that, on this morning, something was different. Tah-té was not missing. Instead, she lay cradled against him, tiny fingers clutched against his skin, burrowing closer to escape the ever-present chill of their environment. She was clean and freshly-dressed, as she always was when she was returned to him, but her garments were slightly thread-bare and less sturdy than was the norm, with a scrap of a shirt which did not quite cover her torso, riding up to reveal livid marks - cruel bruises - across her back.

A towering rage swelled within him, as he reached out, forcing himself to control himself, to be gentle, and traced the marks with trembling fingers.

"Poppie?" she murmured, nuzzling against him, eyelids lifting slowly to reveal tears spilling over sooty lashes. "Hurts, Poppie."

He gathered her to him, whispering endearments, hands stoking her spine with aching gentleness. What he did, he did instinctively and never even realized what he was doing, but the bruises - ugly, blood-filled, obscene against the sweet pallor of her skin - faded gradually, more so with every stroke, until they were only lavender shadows, barely discernible.

He held her close all that day, and she allowed him to do so, which was remarkable in its own way. Ordinarily, even in their sterile, mind-numbingly bland environment, she was eager to explore, to ramble, to look for variety and when it was not forthcoming (which it never was) to create it on her own. But not that day. That day she clung to him, content to be held in his arms, content to be sung to and talked to and cradled. Content, he thought, though he wasn't sure how he knew it, to allow him to shelter her from the shadows rising around them.

That night, he dreamed again.

And every night after that, and the dreams grew more graphic; more frightening; more menacing.

And they expanded, to include a new cast; voices and faces that he did not recognize, but felt he should know. The dreams would find him in a thick cloud mist, struggling to find his way through, to fight his way toward the dim figure that begged for his help, and the words would form around him - sharp and harsh - like bright, hungry blades that nicked at him and struck deep and quick to draw his blood.

_"Attachment is forbidden. Possession is forbidden."_

In the beginning, those phrases were simply repeated, and repeated, growing louder and more strident, battering him with their force, but having little connection to the rest of the dream.

But then the script evolved, growing more detailed, and he was able to partially free himself from the force that gripped him and peer through the obstructing haze to watch a little girl - so familiar, so beautiful, so lost - cower before a towering shadow that laughed at her pleas as it struck its blows, and the words grew ever louder, and were laden beneath other words, other demands, other meaning.

_"Attachment is forbidden. Possession is forbidden. You must not love; you must destroy, or she will destroy you and all that you are sworn to honor."_

And every morning he wakened to find her beside him - bruised or battered or wounded.

And the young man began to experience fear such as he had never known, although he didn't know how he could know that. There was anger within him, as well, an anger that he could not express, could not release, as there was no target for it. Each day, he soothed away the hurt, the pain, the marks of the wounds; each day, he wiped her tears, and held her and watched as the bright-eyed, mischievous, open-hearted child he had come to love changed and began to withdraw into herself. He couldn't understand how anyone could do such terrible things, how could anyone inflict pain and injury on such exquisite innocence.

How and why?

But he found that he didn't want to think about the why; he found that the prospect of learning that answer was almost more than he could bear.

Every hour of every day was now spent in trying to console a child now consumed with fear and heartbreak and trying to understand how things could have deteriorated to such a hopeless desolation and trying to believe that it couldn't possibly get any worse.

A fool's errand, of course, for it certainly could.

And did, and it was at that point that the young man finally knew the truth; that there were depths of hell that few had ever explored, and there were places where nothing could be any worse.

_He must protect her, defend her from the horrors that sought to take her from him, for that, he knew, was the ultimate goal. They would take her away, and he would never know if she lived or died, and he would be alone, and his mind would insist on forming terrible images of what they had done to her._

_He could not endure that; better to die here, better for them both . . ._

_Abruptly, he halted his mad rush, impaled by the bleak horror of that thought. No. Better for him to die here, but she must . . . She must . . . He tried to shrink away from the images, tried to refuse the dream. If he would not be lead into the twisted path of nightmare, how would it proceed? How could it exist, if he refused to see it._

_But, in the end, it would not be denied, and it knew what he could not resist. This time, there was no ambiguity; this time, he heard Tah-té screaming his name. This time, there was no mist._

_He ran and felt a strange joy that he was unencumbered; nothing rose to impede his journey. She was waiting; she was crying for him._

_A curtain of mist rose swiftly before him and then swirled and dissipated, and he felt his heart seize up within him as he froze in place, unable to move further as his eyes were drawn inexorably to the tableau laid out before him._

_"Please, Poppie," she sobbed, as she knelt, bound and helpless, at the feet of the figure who turned to stare at him with cold, implacable eyes._

_"Possession is forbidden," said the towering individual. "Attachment is forbidden."_

_The young man gaped and knew somehow that the face looking back at him had once been the center of his world, a noble face, defined by a spray of silver/chestnut hair and a neatly-trimmed beard, centered with hooded, cerulean eyes that were filled with a frigid coldness that struck terror into the heart of the subject of his scrutiny._

_"Who are you?" The words were like acid, scalding the young man's lips._

_The tall man, dressed in brown and cream, smiled, but there was no warmth in it. "Don't be silly, Padawan. You know who I am, and you know you are sworn to obey me." He looked down then at the whimpering child, and contempt flared in his face as he lifted his gaze once more._

_"Attachment is forbidden," said the man, very deliberately, and the young man felt something flare within him, something dark and ancient and beyond resisting._

_"Do your duty, Padawn," said the man. "Do it now."_

_"Poppie!" It was a whisper, only a sliver of sound, but it drew the young man forward, his heart twisting within him._

_"It hurts, Poppie. Make it stop."_

_"Do your duty, Padawan." Like thunder, filled with compulsion._

_"Make it stop, Poppie."_

_"Attachment is forbidden._ Do your duty! _"_

_"Poppie, I . . .love . . ."_

_He watched as his hands reached out, watched as they found what they sought, watched as if they belonged to someone else, and felt . . . nothing._

His wakening was not so swift this time, for there was no hurry this time. He felt the fragile weight of her body against him, and felt the difference.

Somehow he knew it; somehow, he thought, he had always known it.

************** ******************* ****************

 

Darth Sidious, supreme Lord of the Sith, and, incidentally, Supreme Chancellor of the Republic, sat in the massive throne room that had just been completed within his mountain fortress, according to his exacting specifications. Soon, a duplicate would be constructed in his stronghold on Coruscant, as soon, that is, as he had succeeded in disposing of the blasted Jedi and their pathetic minions.

And today, praise the Dark Force, today had been a significant stopover on the road to that ultimate success.

He stretched out with every ounce of his Force ability, an ability of incredible power, completely concealed beneath his placid, public demeanor, and savored the emotions exploding within the consciousness of young Kenobi; he had known - had caused - much pain during his long life, but this? This was beyond description, almost beyond withstanding - so pure, so intense, so filled with soul-ripping agony; it was a feast for Dark senses that was almost sufficient to drive one mad with an overwhelming orgasmic ecstacy.

Beyond the incredible sweetness of the sensation, there was the additional heady fragrance of victory.

At last, at last, at long, long last, Obi-Wan Kenobi was open to him, stripped bare of all allegiance to the Jedi, or to anything else - empty, aching in the void, eager and ready to be filled.

The Sith could barely contain his excitement and his satisfaction; today he would begin to savor his revenge against the Jedi. Today he would taste the first sweet rewards of his infinite patience. Today, he would claim his lovely prize, precious in its own right, but even more precious for being wrested from its previous owner.

He smiled; he didn't know yet how he was going to manage to catch a glimpse of Qui-Gon Jinn's face when the Master learned of the final disposition of his discarded apprentice; perhaps young Skywalker would prove useful again, though it would soon be necessary to cut himself free from that tiresome young braggart; the prize he gained today would more than compensate for the loss of a boy who wore his hubris like a cloak and resisted instruction in the belief that he was too gifted to require it.

Foolish boy, thought the Sith. Only through pain and sacrifice and suffering could one come to true power, a lesson young Kenobi had already begun to learn and young Skywalker never would.

He made his way quickly through his dark fortress, pausing only to retrieve a bundle of clothing, as he descended into the most secure area of the keep, coming to a stop before what appeared to be a blank wall.

Appearances, of course, were almost always deceiving.

Regretfully, but mindful of who he was dealing with and of the strength in the Force that had always shown so brightly around his young captive, he took a moment to cloak himself in a veil of obscurity. There was virtually no chance that any scrap of Obi-Wan Kenobi - Jedi - had survived the ordeal he had endured, but the Sith never took chances.

When he activated a concealed control, and an opening dilated before him, he reached out through the Dark Force to adjust the intensity of the lighting in the chamber before him, to enable him to drink in the details of the scene. For the first time since the young man's arrival in this place, almost four full lunar cycles before, the brilliant glare softened to a pale, warm glow, and Darth Sidious felt his delight swell within him like a living thing.

The young man knelt in one corner of the large chamber, his eyes unfocused, open but unseeing, motionless, almost unbreathing. Although the sound of the Sith's footsteps were loud within the hard-surfaced cube, he did not react at all, seemed not to notice.

His arms were wrapped around the body of the child, cradling her against his chest, one hand cupped around her cheek, the other loosely clasped around the tiny arm that lay across her abdomen.

He was not crying; he was not seeing.

And Sidious felt his first twinge of alarm.

Quickly - throwing caution to the wind - he dropped to his knees and reached out to place his hands on young shoulders that seemed to be bowed beneath a weight too great to imagine.

"Poor child," said Sidious, projecting any scrap of warmth and sympathy he could muster, which, being a Sith, wasn't very much, but it would have to do. "Poor child, what have they made you do?"

The silence was deafening, within the chamber and within the Force.

He tried again. "She loved you so much, young Kenobi. She had no one else."

Nothing. Not even a spark of interest in hearing a name applied to himself.

The Sith examined the young face, lowered his head to peer into eyes the color of tropical, sunlit seas as he reached out through his Force senses to delve into the consciousness beyond them, and found . . .

In horror and growing rage, Sidious leapt to his feet, and backed away from the tableau before him: two beings - one breathing, one not - but both no longer living.

He wanted to scream, to howl his frustration and strike out at the object of his fury. A blood-red laser blade flared in his hands, and he raised it over his head, wishing only to slice the two into slabs of raw meat.

And he almost did; he almost did, but Lord Sidious was not one to squander opportunity, and he realized, even as the blade started its descent, that indulging his rage would gain him nothing; his prize was lost. He had miscalculated.

Breathing heavily, he disengaged his blade, and went to one knee, to regain his calm and to study the frozen face before him.

At least, in the course of this debacle, he had learned something, though he couldn't think how the knowledge would ever prove useful. But the Sith, in this one way not unlike the Jedi, never discarded knowledge, even if it appeared to have no practical application. One never knew.

He had been taught, under the stern, vicious hands of his own master, that a heart or a soul shattered in the midst of a great, thundering tempest, its owner shrieking his defiance and his grief, cursing the callous cruelty of fate.

Only now did he know the truth.

A heart broke; a soul shattered finally, completely, without hope of repair, in silence - alone, unmourned and unremarked.

This particular heart and soul had been pushed beyond its ability to endure, to a point where there were only two alternatives; to embrace the darkness and exact revenge for injustice suffered or to relinquish the connection to a reality too cruel to be borne.

The Sith recognized his mistake, just that much too late. He had meant to break the young man's bonds to the Jedi and the Light; instead, he had broken his belief in himself. Obi-Wan Kenobi might have lived to seek revenge for his betrayal by the Jedi; he could not live with what he perceived as his own betrayal of innocence.

He had not, of course, actually strangled the child; that duty had fallen to some faceless cretin who had probably relished the task. She had already been dead when placed back in his bed.

But there was no way he could know that; no way for him to be sure.

He had only the dream, projected into his mind by Sith machinations, to tell him what really happened.

His body endured, for now, but it was empty; awareness had drained out of him, leaving only a broken vessel.

The Jedi taught their initiates that there was no death.

The Sith paused in the doorway of the chamber in which he had imprisoned his young prize and rediscovered a reason to smile.

They were about to learn differently.

************ *************** *******************

 

(Qui-Gon's perspective)

I tried to swallow my annoyance; it seemed to be my most frequent response to any action initiated by the Council these days.

I knew - as well as anyone, and better than most - that the situation within the Republic, and the growing unrest among systems demanding reform and threatening separation if it were not forthcoming, had taxed the Jedi almost beyond coping. There were simply too few of us, and too many crises on too many worlds.

Which was one reason I was so annoyed.

I did not like being summoned to Coruscant; although Anakin's existence and training, and the conspiratorial manner in which it had been accomplished, had recently been revealed to the upper echelons of the Senate, I was still uneasy in the vicinity of the capitol, remembering all too well the dire warnings and heavy foreboding which had arisen at the time of his discovery.

The cost for keeping him safe, for guaranteeing an opportunity to complete his apprenticeship, had simply been too great to risk failure now.

I didn't allow myself to focus on that thought or its deeper meaning.

Our missions, which had deteriorated of late into emergency calls to extinguish outbreaks of rebellion or revolution in outer rim worlds, had been put on hold, dire though any need might have been, to demand our presence here - on Coruscant - and my demand for an explanation had been flatly denied.

To say that I was annoyed when my apprentice and I were escorted into the Council Chamber is a gross understatement; I was a whisker away from being furious, and Master Yoda, of course, knew it immediately.

He simply stared at me, uncowed, unintimidated, until I managed to get myself under control; after all those years, you would think I'd have known better than to try to go head-to-head against the little troll.

Finally, I managed a bare semblance of a bow, which I noticed, with some dismay, my apprentice duplicated exactly.

"My Masters," I said firmly, when none of them chose to speak, "we have come at your insistence, leaving much still to be done on Helska. What is it that could not wait, that . . ."

Yoda stood abruptly and stared at me in a way that caused my mouth to go dry suddenly, as if I had swallowed sand.

"A shuttle awaits us," he said sharply. "Come, you will."

"But . . ."

He silenced me with a simple gesture, as Mace Windu rose, and moved to join us, and I looked to my old age-mate for clarification.

Mace stared for a moment at Anakin, who had turned to accompany us. "Your padawan will remain here," he said, in a tone that brooked no argument. "You have been summoned, Master Qui-Gon. You, alone."

"Now wait a minute," I began, alarm growing within me. "I don't like this. I don't like leaving him . . ."

Yoda spun quickly and looked up at me, and something within me wanted to cringe away from the look on his face. "Safe here, he will be. Other debts we must pay today."

I saw the petulance and rebellion flare in my padawan's eyes and knew it would require many hours or days or weeks of mollification to soothe his wounded pride, but I couldn't worry about that just then. Something stirred then, within the Force, perhaps, or maybe beyond it. Something dark and cold; something that enclosed my heart in an icy grip.

"Where are we going?" I asked, as we made our way to the small shuttle waiting on the tiny landing bay just below the Council chamber.

"Chancellor Palpatine has requested our presence," answered Mace, his tone betraying nothing.

"With all due respect, Mace," I said churlishly, "I don't have time for political infighting or . . ."

"For this," interrupted Master Yoda, "you will make time. _We_ will make time."

The flight to the Chancellor's penthouse residence was brief, and I wondered why we had been summoned to his private quarters, rather than to his offices at the Senate building.

Could it be that this was not an official matter? But that made no sense. What else would spur the Republic's premier leader to request a Jedi presence?

We landed on the private parking area reserved for the Chancellor's personal transports, and were ushered into the residence by a phalanx of Republican guards, and, as I stepped into the foyer, with its rich furnishings and artifacts from dozens of Republic worlds, I was touched once more with that sense of cold foreboding.

Whatever awaited us was at hand.

Chancellor Palpatine, elegant and restrained as always, awaited us in the corridor that lead to the private areas of the residence, areas ordinarily closed off to the public and the news media that were perpetually in residence in the unrestricted areas.

"I thought it better," he said quietly, "to keep everything as private as possible. This is not something I imagine the Order will want known to the general public."

The alarm inside me grew from a faint buzzing to a shriek.

"I want to know," I said then, coming to a halt and refusing to move again until I got an answer, "exactly what is going on here."

It was Yoda who provided the response, who turned to look up at me, and allowed me to read the truth in his eyes. "Found him, we have."

I don't remember the journey down the broad corridor, or through the sunlit chambers that led to the tiny garden terrace where I found what I was seeking. They tell me that I ran like a man demented or pursued by demons, and I have no doubt that it's true. I don't even remember what I was thinking.

I only remember the sight that greeted me when I burst through the terrace doors - that, and the swift, impaling stroke of hope destroyed, for I knew, immediately.

I knew and would have given my soul, my life, and my hope of final union with the Force to be proven wrong.

He didn't see me, not at first. He didn't see anything, I think.

He sat on a low, stone bench, a cloak of soft, expensive mreshier wool wrapped around him, dappled by sunlight dancing through the foliage of a gerial tree; he looked much the same as he had when last I saw him, slender, exquisitely muscled form, broad shoulders and flat belly with a narrow waist, long, shapely legs clad in soft boots. His hair was longer, of course, a drift of polished copper, curling around his shoulders, and he was paler than I remembered. But the face was the same - sculpted, symmetrical, with porcelain skin of pale gold stretched across perfect cheekbones, the cleft chin that always somehow emphasized the quality of bright smiles, the little mole on his cheek that seemed to stress the perfection of the balance of features.

And the eyes, of course; the eyes.

But it was there, in those incredible eyes - always so luminous, so warm, so filled with life and enthusiasm and wonder and curiosity - there that I found the difference, the difference that confirmed what my Force sense had already learned.

This was his body; but he was gone.

It was Palpatine who offered what little clarification there was, who related the story of being summoned to the entry of his summer residence on Naboo in the middle of a stormy night and of what awaited him there.

Obi-Wan had been found kneeling in the rain, cold, shivering, clothed only in torn, ragged leggings and clutching the body of a young girl against his chest.

There had been nothing to explain where he had come from or where he had been, and no one had ever been able to identify the child.

The Chancellor's staff had carried the young man into the house, and tended his wounds, but they had been unsuccessful in attempting to remove the girl from his arms, until the Chancellor's physician had been called in to sedate him.

When they had finally managed to take her from him, they had found a torn scrap of paper tucked into the bodice of her dress.

"Paper?" I asked, as he completed his story. "What paper?"

With a sigh of reluctance, he extended his hand. It was indeed just a scrap, torn from some larger document, no doubt.

The message was brief and to the point.

_"The Jedi set him on this path; I simply escorted him to its end. Any soul can be opened and plundered; one only needs to find the right key."_

I read those words aloud, and turned to look into the empty eyes of my lovely lost padawan.

And he looked up at me; it was extraordinary, they said. It was the first time he had reacted, to anything, since the day they had found him.

He looked up at me, and he began to cry.  Without a sound. Without a sob or a shudder. His tears were silent and endless.

When he looked away, they continued to fall, and the silence grew deeper.

 

*********** ************* ****************

In the end, they took him to Naboo, where lovely, tragic Amidala took him in. I never spoke to either of them again, but I have occasionally wondered if the depth of his pain might have helped her find some solace for hers.

The body of the little girl - who was never identified - was entombed in a paristeel coffin, in the mausoleum reserved for Naboo royalty and protected by a stasis field that would protect her from the depredations of time, through all the long ages of the world.

They put Obi-Wan into a tiny cottage on the palace grounds, and established a watch among the Naboo security forces - soldiers who remembered his heroism and his bravery during the droid occupation, and who devoted themselves to seeing that he was undisturbed and left in peace to wait out the end of his life.

For no one doubted that it had become nothing more than a waiting game. Amidala, I was told, finally managed to get through to him sufficiently, to convince him to eat and drink and see to his basic needs, but he remained a ghost of the man he had been.

He never spoke again, or so I'm told, or ventured beyond the confines of the gardens surrounding his cottage.

Most of his time was spent within the mausoleum, and the soldiers who guarded him would often escort him back to his little dwelling, when the hour grew late and he swayed with weariness. Once or twice, one of them would report that he had been found with his face pressed against the transparent panels of the casket, making some small sound that might have been a scrap of song.

But nobody could say for sure.

It ended, of course, in the only way it could.

One day, a day like any other, someone turned his back at the wrong moment; someone failed to notice some small anomaly; someone blinked - and Obi-Wan was gone.

And thus did the rumors begin.

It's said that he walks in the moonlight above the great waterfalls; that he slips through the forests like a wraith in the night; that he sometimes appears in the marshlands, hand-in-hand with a small child, the light in his eyes bright with recaptured joy.

None of it is true.

Obi-Wan released his grasp on life just a few days after he disappeared from the palace grounds. I felt him die.

The bond that still existed between us was incredibly fragile, barely discernible against the tracery of Force connections that join all living things, but it lived still, until the moment he chose to let it go, to let everything go.

I felt him die and could hardly bear the pain that rose within me. But I quickly discovered that there was something worse.

I felt him die, but I did not feel his consciousness blend into the Force.

And now, I sit here, in my forced exile on this barren wasteland, as I endure the loneliness of this life and await the opportunity to fulfill the duty placed upon me by the Force and the Jedi and understand things that I never wished to know. Across the barren desert, a child grows; a child who is, perhaps, the last hope for the rebirth of all that is good and decent and just in the galaxy.

The Jedi are dead or dying, and I have felt them as they slipped the bonds of mortality and were welcomed into the eternity that awaits us all. They knew the sorrow of loss, of leaving a task undone, of grieving for the death of innocence, but they also knew joy - the joy of homecoming, of finding their place in the tapestry of existence.

I felt it in them and from them; I never felt it from Obi-Wan.

And I am left to contemplate a final, unbearable truth. In our hubris and our determination to force destiny to adhere to our intentions, we gave to the enemy a weapon of such destructive power that none of us could have foreseen the consequences of our actions, and the price was paid not only by the Jedi, in our terrible arrogance, but by those who should have been granted our protection - innocent souls like poor, tragic, little Padmé and those who tried to shield her, and like that nameless little girl who somehow stole my lost padawan's heart. And like my Obi-Wan, who has, I have come to understand, paid the ultimate price.

I will never know what happened at the end, what compelled him to choose to embrace the endless cold of non-existence, and I think perhaps that is the greatest tragedy of all. Someone should know; someone should have been there, to understand.

This is the truth I find myself almost unable to endure.

To pay with everything one has can be an acceptable exchange for a desired end, if one agrees to the price.

But the price paid, when all is said and done in this great conflict, will be terrible indeed, but paid, ultimately, by one who was never given a choice. He died, believing, for some reason, that he had betrayed innocence. That is the only conclusion I can come to, and he rejected the welcoming embrace of the Force as it reached for him.

I cannot explain to you how I know this; I just know that it is true.

I have no illusions left.

He lives now, only in my dreams.

 

FINI   

 

 

 


End file.
